


Music for the Masses

by kaelio



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Music, cultural discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28849326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaelio/pseuds/kaelio
Summary: Julian is relieved to hear there's at least one thing from Earth that Garak finds worthwhile.
Relationships: Julian Bashir & Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 29
Kudos: 91





	Music for the Masses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eusuchia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eusuchia/gifts).



“For your information, doctor, I did manage to—as a function of your _alarmingly_ audacious request—identify Earth music of some merit.” He wove his fingers together, seeming most proper and prim, though in the process denying some of the expressiveness of his hands. Perhaps that was what he meant to say: _and you had best make a good effort, lest I tell you no more._

Dr. Bashir would not stand for that. He shoved another mouthful of Talaxian mm-shooph into his mouth with an understated smile. “Well, you must enlighten me, then, Garak,” he prompted. “There’s quite a lot of Earth music, you know. _Which_ was it, then, which appealed to the Cardassian ear?”

“Oh, ours may not be quite as _sensitive_ as the human ear, my dear doctor, but we more than compensate with the refinement of our auditory palate.” He tilted his head with some pitying self-assurance.

“It wasn’t a dig, Garak,” Julian reassured him (though he was reasonably confident Garak had not took it that way and was, instead, merely being troublesome). “Now then: come on! East-Asian chanting? Welsh electronica? Reggaeton? … Or, perhaps not a genre, but a specific troupe? Oh, Rachmaninov! No, or, perhaps Gilbert and Sullivan? Smashmouth? ABBA? Doublemuch Graffito? Vulcan Candy Dick?”

“Please do not say these terrible nonsense words to me, doctor.” He unlocked his fingers—there was the tell, the admitted tell, that Julian had done enough, please-and-thank-you. Or perhaps worse, that Garak had indeed paid the enumerated artists some attention, and did not, as long as he lived, care to be reminded of the fact. “Spring peeper.”

Julian awkwardly swallowed the following bite. “‘Spring…’. What? Spring peeper? Garak, those are frogs. Those are frog sounds.”

“I said it was music from Earth,” Garak reminded him. He snorted and straightened his spine, reorienting his posture, universally snobbish. He pulled the napkin from his neck. “Obviously, it would not be Human music. Human music is abominable. The spring peeper, however, is really quite enchanting.”

Julian thought to dispute the point, perhaps out of habit. However, he had to admit, it was half a victory. Among other things, it was one of the first times he’d heard Garak offer full-throated approval to any form of art originating from the Federation, even if it was merely the outpouring of any healthy swamp. (Perhaps it was right to be proud of behalf of Earth, and not just simian-kind.) “If you like those sorts of sounds, you might see if Ensign Iiiiiiiiii’kiiiiiiiii-{click}-{click} has any recommendations as well. I admit I’m not particularly well-versed in classical dolphin, but she’s apparently quite the connoisseur.”

His companion waved a hand away. “Cetacean music is far too lascivious for the cultivated ear. I was scarcely twenty seconds into a popular ballad before it was nothing but explicit glorification of sexual arousal at using the same beak one wields for ramming the gills of sharks for investigating the vents of one’s neighboring pod. And that, as it happens, was the tamest of the lot.”

The doctor laughed. (Now _that_ was music.) “All right, all right. Might have wanted to go translator-off for a few of those.”

“Speaking of which, Doctor. It seems that the songs of spring peeper don’t activate my translator at all. Since you appear to be familiar, can you tell me, what is the context for their work?”

“Oh, no, it wouldn’t. Too primitive,” Julian explained. “A frog is, well. A frog is a little….” He made a shape with his hands that was, in no way, convincingly reminiscent of a frog. He nevertheless bopped it across the table, disrupting their silverware. “Little jumping animal. Lives in the water. Lots of species. Neck blows out, making noise. ‘Ribbit, ribbit,’ you know. Well, perhaps you…. Hmm. I mean, the music isn’t _purposeless,_ but it can’t really be assigned words that way. Just means, ah, ‘I’m looking for a mate.’”

“Oh. So it is a lonely song.”

//

It was nearly a week later when Julian came by Garak’s boutique. He had received a notification—just a little blip on his communicator—to inform him that one of his orders was complete and ready for retrieval.

(He’d split the seam of one of his favorite, and now well-worn, tennis outfits. Right up along the inner thigh—)

He gave a little wave. “Garak!” he announced pleasantly.

Garak looked up from where he had been wrangling a particularly thorny sequin. (Alas, for one of the dabo boys. He’d never seen Julian in sequins, although—) “Ah, Doctor. Very nice to see you. Unusually promptly, I might add.”

The doctor beamed. “Oh, it was on my mind.” He pointed to the ceiling, where a familiar sound was pouring from the speakers. “Spring peeper, Garak?”

“Something for the ambiance.”

“Quark mentioned something about it.”

(Specifically, Quark had requested that Julian check Garak for one of the station’s all-too-routine possessions. By Quark’s reckoning, there had never before been music from Garak’s Clothiers, and if there were, it was hard to imagine the owner selecting what was a distinctly non-Cardassian tune. “ _It’s Thrint thrallsong,_ ” Quark had insisted. “ _I just know it._ ”)

Garak placed the dabo boy’s sparkling cuff on his workbench, somewhat pensively. “Now, let me find your… sporting accoutrement, then. Just one moment, please. I know it’s around here somewhere.” He began opening the lower drawers, where he often stashed whatever simple work he’d finished that day. He found the garment quickly, but not nearly as quickly as usual. He lay it on the workbench next to the cuff, smoothing its neat folds with his hands.

It wasn’t like him. It was Garak, _distracted._ Julian shot a glance to the speakers again. “Garak, are you lonely?”

A lie was half-formed, ready at hand—teetering on the tip of his tongue like a diver short of nerve. But Garak paused, let it hang, languish, unspoken in the air. Instead, he offered a reserved smile and patted Julian on the hand. “Well, certainly not when you’re here.”

Oh, there was an automatic smile for that. A _bright_ smile for that, over-large and toothy. He took to it, took to it well: being reminded that there was one person on this station who didn’t need to be convinced. Who’d appreciated his presence all the while. “It’s funny you should say that. That’s how I—well. What I mean to say is, if that’s how you feel, would you like to come by tonight? I was planning to watch some old Earth videos—tennis matches, historical ones. So old all we’ve got is flat video, I’m afraid, so, hard to get most people particularly excited…. But if you’d like, and you came, I’d explain it to you, tennis?”

Garak’s brow furrowed. “Ah. I’d assumed you needed these clothes for another holosuite adventure. Mr. O’Brian, perhaps.”

The doctor’s cheeks were reddening. “Oh, ah. I like to dress up, when I watch.” And a slightly deeper blush, still— “And recreate some of the moves. Imagining, you see, imagining I’m at Wimbledon—it’s this, ah, it’s a famous tournament location, historically, though after the World War III—”

“It would be my pleasure, Doctor.”

Relief swept across the doctor’s features. “Ah, that’s. Brilliant, I’m glad. … You know, it’s quite a bit like Cardassian _trrrrstai’l._ You have the, er, the arena, and the ball—volleying—and rules about where it can land, even the handheld implement—”

“More _primitive_ , I’m sure.”

Julian wasn’t sure if he was being teased. Given it was Garak, he assumed the answer was yes.

—Which Garak’s expression supported. “Which is not to suggest any less exquisite.” And at once he donned innocent eyes, the liar. “I’ve heard a tremendous range of primitive activities described as altogether delightful, and, I’m told, all the better when one is not alone.”

“Well, there was another, er, _primitive activity,_ which was on my likely agenda later…. If you’re up for it, having that, er, described, the ins and outs and all. And, ah, if you like, even more than tennis, you’d be welcome to join in.”

“Hmm…,” Garak purred. “Doctor.”

Julian was swimming in that strange and heady feeling. “Yes, Garak?”

“If that’s the case, please don’t wear that ghastly outfit.”

**Author's Note:**

> A little one-shot based on my wee little tumblr shitpost about this. Enjoy!
> 
> Thrint are technically from Niven's "Known Space" but they are referenced in the TAS episode "The Slaver Weapon", which is based on the Known Space story "Stasis Box", down to the presence of Kzin. (The "Slaver" term is used instead of the species name Thrint.) I just felt like including it and I love throwing TAS references into things when I can.


End file.
